


The Sokovians

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Spies, The Americans AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-05 18:24:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17330144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: Roughly based on The Americans. FitzSimmons are embedded in suburban Sokovia as part of an effort to root out the truth about whether Hydra is operating there. Relationship fic, not so much an action fic or plot fic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably only be a few chapters - I'd have loved to make it all just one long chapter but I get impatient.

“Think he’s had enough yet?” 

Jemma joined Fitz in the darkened corner, eyes narrowed at their target. “I’m not so sure. I can’t help feeling he’s playing on your sympathies, drawing you out until he feels he’s gained the upper hand.” 

Nodding, Fitz tossed the stick coolly to his other hand and strode back through the smoke to the table.    
  


“Double or nothing.” 

Ghenrik groaned, dropping his elbows to the green felt of the billiards table. “Fitz, my boy, you’ll be the death of me -- or at least the death of my marriage! You’ve already taken me for nearly a week’s pay.” 

“It’s okay to concede,” Fitz shrugged, all wide-eyed innocence. “No shame in admitting I’m the better player. Well,  _ some  _ shame, considerable shame, actually, come to think--”

“Oh, don’t embarrass him in front of his wife,” Luisa called from her stool at the bar. “He can do that quite well enough on his own, thank you.” 

“Maybe another few drinks, then a last round, winner takes all?” Ghenrik suggested, grinning broadly, but Fitz shook his head, sliding his cue back into the rack and catching Jemma’s hand as she made her way around the table. 

“Not on your life, Ghen. You think you can choose the strongest stuff this place has to offer and slowly wear me down until my depth perception is impaired and my bravado is escalated. I’ll not be fooled by you.” 

“So I take it we  _ can  _ still have drinks, if you boys are done playing with your sticks?” Jemma asked dryly. 

The bartender poured four shots, which they clinked and downed as one. Jemma burped prettily -- Fitz nearly rolled his eyes; he knew what a  _ real  _ Simmons burp sounded like -- and swayed into him, snugging her arms around his middle. 

“Mmm,” he hummed, rubbing her far shoulder. “Shall I take you home then?” 

She tilted her face up, the lazy affection of her smile not matched by the clarity of her eyes. “Take me home, husband.” 

“Duty calls,” he said, as if in apology, to their friends, though he’d been ready to go for hours. 

“Ah, I’m sure nature does as well, and I don’t mean the toilet,” Luisa chuckled, eyeing Jemma all wound about Fitz. 

“Oh, shhh, we have children,” Jemma scolded. 

“So do it quietly,” Ghenrik shrugged. “Isn’t that how you Englishfolk always do sex? Like--” He made a graphic motion, face screwed up as if in constipation. 

“She might be English, but I’m not,” Fitz whispered loudly, and they took their leave, the others laughing uproariously behind them. 

“It wasn’t  _ that _ funny,” Jemma sighed, voice instantly steady as they exited the bar. She unwrapped herself from Fitz to snug her jacket about her; it was becoming nippy outside, the month or so of honest-to-goodness summer already past. 

“I thought it was alright,” Fitz murmured. His hands were cold without her, but he tucked them into his pockets. 

“Of course  _ you _ thought it was funny, it was  _ your  _ joke.” Jemma shot him a look over the top of the car before they got in. 

“You don’t want to start that with me, Simmons. The number of jokes of yours I’ve laughed at when it wasn’t warranted--”

“Just because  _ my  _ jokes are too sophisticated for your adolescent mind--”

“Start the damn car, would you!” 

Scowling, Jemma did so, but she didn’t start driving right away. She fiddled with the radio tuner for a moment, an obvious distraction, before sighing. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be snippy.” 

Fitz knew better, after having lived with her for a dozen years, than to ask if it was that time of the month. “What’s wrong, then?” 

She gestured back to the bar. “I can’t help thinking they’re good people, and we’re not.” 

“They’re Hydra, Simmons.” 

“ _ Suspected _ Hydra,” she corrected quickly. 

“Alright, so nothing’s confirmed, but if you even  _ suspect _ someone of being a fascist, don’t you already think that speaks enough against them?” 

“I’m not sure it’s that simple. False accusations and wild presumptions are made all the time.” 

“Aye.” Fitz’s breath clouded in the dark car. “Like you once falsely accused me of supporting  _ Liverpool _ .” His mouth twisted with distaste. 

She shook her head, but she was smiling. “And see how incorrect I was?” 

Fitz was sorely tempted to keep the jokes flowing, as much to avoid the topic as to provoke a genuine laugh from her, a last spark of joy in the day. But he sensed she needed something else. “Are you having doubts, then?” 

She started to say something, then pressed her lips together. When she at last looked at him again, her eyes were nervous. “Always.” 

He found her hand on the plastic material of the seat bench between them. “That’s what makes you good, Simmons. Whatever our friends turn out to be.” 

  
  
  
  


Their children were asleep when they got back. They paid the babysitter, turned out all the lights, and got ready for bed. Jemma thumbed the corner of a page of her book, watching the news on the small television opposite their bed while Fitz brushed his teeth. 

In the morning, they’d make breakfast for the eight-year-old twins before seeing them off to school. They’d take the dog for a quick walk before work, greeting their neighbors as they went. They’d take the bus to the Sokovian Scientific Institute, where Fitz would get off on the eleventh floor for the astrophysics department while Jemma would continue up to the fourteenth. They would meet for lunch if time allowed or reconnect after work. Tomorrow being a Thursday, it was Fitz’s turn to cook. 

Of course, it was all a lie. 

This was not her house. Those were not her children. And Fitz was not her husband. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the spacing, I have to double-enter in Google Docs to get it to look right and then it ends up EXTRA spaced here and it's too much of a pain to go back and fix...

_ Fifteen years ago _

 

Jemma’s face burned as she sat on the bench outside Weaver’s office. Not a full semester even she’d been at the Academy, and here she was, called to see the schools director like some sort of miscreant. Other cadets kept walking past and tittering to each other, likely feeling it was proper comeuppance for their peer who so painfully outshone them. Naturally Jemma  _ knew  _ it must be some sort of misunderstanding; perhaps her last theoretical physics answer sheet had been a bit  _ too  _ perfect and she was under suspicion of cheating. She need only offer to complete it again in Weaver’s presence to clear that up, and maybe trick Weaver into being seen in pleasant conversation with her afterwards to dispel the rumors no doubt already roiling in the Boiler Room. 

 

“Cadet Simmons? Director Weaver will see you now.” 

 

Wiping her hands on her trousers, she hurried past the receptionist and into the office, self-defense already launching. 

 

“Agent Weaver, I come before you humbly to express my sincere belief that this has all been a grave--”

 

“Simmons!” 

 

“Hmm?” Jemma finally took in Weaver and her guest, a man she recognized despite his blend-into-the-crowd normalness. “Oh, hello, Agent Coulson.” 

 

“Hi,” Coulson smiled, apparently not put off by his small fame. “Where’s the other one?” 

 

“Other--?”

 

Jemma turned as the door burst open again, and Leo Fitz stumbled through, his messenger bag getting caught on the handle so that half his papers were flung onto the floor and the strap nearly wrenched his neck off. 

 

“Shite,” he grumbled, and he stooped to collect his materials without untangling himself first; the bag stopped his progress to the floor and left him dangling a few inches above the floor, his feet sliding back. 

 

“Honestly,” Jemma sighed, and she pushed him firmly by the shoulders to right him. “Stay,” she commanded, and ducked down to gather the papers. When she’d tucked them back into his bag, she unlooped the bag strap and hefted it up his shoulder a bit to secure it. “Now, do you think you can make it to the chair without injuring us both?” 

 

He’d looked genuinely grateful until she said that; she felt a bit guilty as his face darkened, but she’d given him a dozen opportunities over their first few weeks in class and he’d always snubbed her. He’d made it quite clear he didn’t like or respect her in the slightest, and if she wasn’t quite mature enough to keep that bitterness from coloring her interactions with him now, well, she  _ was  _ only sixteen. Even super-geniuses have limitations.

 

“Thanks very much,” Fitz muttered bitterly, and he pushed past her to drop into one of the chairs facing Weaver’s desk. 

 

Coulson and Weaver were watching them with juxtaposed expressions of amusement and skepticism, respectively. 

 

“You’re sure they’re the two you want?” Weaver asked. 

 

“You said they’re brilliant, right?” 

 

“Two of the best we’ve had,” Weaver affirmed. Jemma caught herself before she could glance eagerly at Fitz; they were  _ not  _ compatriots in this, or anything. 

 

“And terrible at field work?” 

 

“Undoubtedly. They haven’t done an official assessment, not yet, but all casual observations are coming back severely negative.” 

 

“Music to my ears.” Coulson faced them both calmly, hands clasped before him. “As Cadet Simmons acknowledged before Cadet Fitz joined us, I’m Agent Phil Coulson. I’m running a few...special projects for Director Fury, and I’ve got a request for you both. A mission proposal.”

 

“For us?” Jemma’s head whipped to look at Fitz, and back. “With  _ him _ ?” she demanded, at the same time that Fitz scoffed, “With  _ her?”  _

 

“Yep,” Coulson affirmed, looking a mite too pleased with himself and the whole situation. “You’d be partnered. A true team. You’d be lucky, really - many agents conduct missions totally alone. But our friends are our greatest asset.” 

 

“We’re not friends,” Fitz muttered. 

 

“Don’t you ever think maybe you  _ could _ be?” Coulson asked gently. Jemma glanced at Fitz again, and blushed to find his gaze already on her, a little furrow between his striking blue eyes. She  _ had  _ thought, when they’d first met -- 

 

“For what it’s worth, I think you’d be a great pair, and you have the combination of youth, lack of record, technical ability, and reputation for poor field skills that we need.” 

 

“Well that’s very flattering,” Jemma muttered. Fitz twitched next to her but said nothing. “May I ask  _ what _ the mission is?” 

 

“That’s classified,” Coulson said regretfully. “I can only give you the details if you agree to do it. Limiting the number of people in the know, you know.” 

 

“It’s a great opportunity for your careers, and you’d be serving your organization, your countries, and the world,” Weaver added. 

 

“You don’t have to decide now. We think this mission will start in a year or so, and we’re feeling out several candidate teams. So think on it, get to know each other, and give me your final answer when I come back.” 

 

Jemma frowned at her knees, but Fitz stood up. “Thank you, sir. We’ll think on it.” 

 

He shook Coulson’s hand and left. Jemma blinked up at her two superiors for a moment before making a hasty exit and chasing after him down the hallway. His messenger bag was banging against his hip with every step, like he had a few dozen toolkits inside. She wouldn’t be surprised. 

 

“Are you honestly considering saying yes?” she panted as she drew level to him. 

 

“No,” Fitz snorted. “Not in this bloody lifetime.” 

 

She gaped. “ _ Fitz! _ It’s  _ such _ an honor to be asked!” 

 

“An honor?” he scoffed. “You heard what he said. They want us because we’re smart and new and a clean slate. Probably want to turn us into psycho-robot-genius-assassins or something.” His mouth formed a little “o”. “God, I bet it’s that. Brainwashing and - and - reprogramming--”

 

“Don’t be stupid, they can’t do that,” she scoffed. She didn’t  _ think  _ they could. “Come on, Fitz, please.” 

 

“You don’t need me,” he fended her off. “If I say no they’ll just find you someone from Ops to match you up with. They’ve got to have a few blokes over there who aren’t total dunderheads...” 

 

“You’re insufferable,” she huffed. 

 

“And  _ you  _ can’t make me do it,” he retorted. 

  
  
  
  


He was right - she couldn’t, but  _ someone  _ wasn’t going to give up that easily. 

 

The next term, they found they had all their classes together, excepting the few specialty courses they’d need for their concentrations - and even in those, they somehow ended up crossing paths as he entered and she left or vice-versa, or he’d come to deliver books to her biological ethics seminar, or she’d be summoned to discuss her paper with Professor Vaughn just as Fitz helped Vaughn lead a section on astrophysics. It could have all been coincidences, but it felt uncannily as if everyone of any power at the Academy was contriving to make them interact. 

 

Those interactions remained brittle, brief, and brusque, at best, until February of their first year, several months after Coulson’s visit, when they were paired together in chem lab. 

 

“Hello,” Jemma said coolly, sliding onto the stool next to Fitz’s. 

 

“Don’t start, Simmons, I’m not doing it,” he groaned. 

 

“I wasn’t going to -!” 

 

“You were, I could tell.” 

 

“You don’t know me, Leopold.” 

 

His shoulder nearest her hunched up, as if automatically, as she said his first name. She scrunched her hands in her lap to fight off an urge to put one on his shoulder and smoothe it down. 

 

“Did you, em, have a good holiday?” she asked instead, to fill the awkward air. 

 

Fitz blinked at her. “It’s -- it’s February, Simmons.” 

 

“I know it is! I was just being polite.” 

 

“Well, stop doing it,” he replied, turning back to the worksheets the professor had distributed, and she almost felt like he’d meant it as a joke. 

 

She pulled her stool up so she could work alongside him, as lab partners were supposed to do, when they didn’t hate each other. “What do we have here?” 

 

“Erm--” He folded the tip of his ear down, which Jemma had noticed him do before in classes, especially during exams, though she’d never been this close when it happened. The backside of his ear looked about the color and texture of a peach. “Dielectric polarization.” 

 

“Ooh! I love dielectric polarization,” she gushed, shushing his hands away so she could see the worksheet. 

 

“No one  _ loves _ dielectric polarization, Simmons.”

 

“ _ I  _ do.” 

 

Fitz was quiet for a moment, watching as she took her pouch out of her bag and began laying out her pencils, erasers, pens, and ruler. Then, “I do too,” he mumbled. 

  
  
  
  
  


“How can you  _ not  _ be going to the dance? It’s, like, the one fun thing we do all year, and you want to miss it to do  _ more  _ homework?” 

 

“It’s not homework, Sally, it’s stargazing. It  _ is  _ fun.” 

 

Sally looked at Jemma suspiciously, as if she thought Jemma were pulling her leg. “Who did this to you?” she asked. “Who hurt you to make you like this? Blink three times if it’s Fitz and you need to be rescued.” 

 

“If it were physically possible I’d blink one and a half times, because yes, Fitz will be joining me, but I don’t need to be rescued.” 

 

“Remember when you hated him?” Sally sighed nostalgically, plopping her elbow onto Jemma’s book and her chin into her palm. “Those were beautiful days. I miss that time. Take me back to the start. The golden era. The sweet fall days before Fitz and Simmons became Fitzsimmons-” 

 

“Wassat?” Fitz poked his head out of the shield under which he’d been soldering his latest creation. 

 

“Oh nothing.” Sally pushed away from the table and gave Jemma’s hair an affection ruffle. “Just bemoaning how cruel your friendship is to the rest of us losers. See ya, nerds.” 

 

“ _ Nerd  _ is not a very striking insult at an institution meant to attract only the best and brightest,” Jemma called after her. 

 

Fitz had already gone back to his work. Jemma smiled down at her book. She’d never have thought Coulson could’ve been right, had even actively tried to prevent it - but she and Fitz were, indeed, friends. Best friends, she felt, though they’d not discussed it as such. It was hard to imagine her life without him, honestly. Even if they didn’t end up accepting Coulson’s mission, she’d forever be grateful for the way it had brought them together. 

  
  
  


Coulson didn’t return at the year mark, but a woman named Maria Hill did. She reported that Coulson was dead, killed by Loki, but that Fury had given her orders to continue this project. 

 

“So, if you’re ready to accept it, I can give you the background and get you on your way.” 

 

They were holding hands. Jemma wasn’t sure when that had happened, but she needed the stabilization in this pivotal moment. 

 

“Can we come back and finish our schooling, after it’s over?” 

 

“You can,” Hill responded carefully, “but it might not be over as quickly as you’d think.” 

 

“We really should’ve made this decision before we came today,” Jemma laughed nervously. “What do you think, Fitz?” 

 

He looked terrified. He’d gotten a lot better at hiding it, amidst all the pressure to seem perfectly fine at the Academy, but she could read it on him. If they said yes to this, and something happened to him, if he -- she could never -- “I think... I think you’d always regret it if you didn’t.” 

 

“You hate change,” she whispered. 

 

“I do,” he chuckled. “And I chose a bloody terrible career for a coward. But... Coulson was right about us, you know. About us being friends. He saw that, somehow. Makes me think, maybe he saw something in us that was right for this mission as well.” 

 

“Nah, Coulson was kind of a crackpot, may he rest in peace,” Hill contributed. They both laughed. 

 

“Oh god, I think we’re doing this,” Jemma sighed, and Fitz nodded, giving her a wavering smile that looked about as confident as she felt. “Yes,” she announced to Hill, as Fitz hugged her from the side. 

 

“Great,” Hill said, immediately all business. “These--” She slid packets across the table to them, “--are your new identities. Same names, same essential backstory and childhood, but now you’re married, you’re 20 years old, and you’re about to move to Sokovia to join their thriving research community. You’ll stay as long as necessary to get us intel on potential illegal activity and dangerous testing being done there. You leave tonight.” 

  
  
  
  


The funny thing about moving into an empty suburban home in a new country with one’s best friend was how quickly the realization set in that they’d only been friends for about eight months or so. Essentially, they were still strangers. Jemma knew more about some celebrities than she did about Fitz. Okay, perhaps that was an exaggeration - they  _ were  _ quite close - but even Fitz felt foreign that first night in Sokovia. 

 

They didn’t have any furniture yet, so they slept side by side in sleeping bags on the living room floor. Jemma could hear Fitz’s breathing, too shallow to be sleep-breathing, and knew that he too was trying to come to terms with what they’d done, what they were about to do. 

 

“Do you think we’ll be branded traitors?” she whispered. 

 

His sleeping bag rustled as he shifted. “We didn’t defect or anything. Just relocated.” 

 

“But we’ll be telling everyone we’ve given up our UK citizenship. If someone we meet here ever tells someone from home--”

 

“I know. I keep thinking what it’ll be like, whether I’ll someday be able to go home, see my mum.” 

 

“And boys were  _ just  _ starting to be interested in me,” Jemma sighed. 

 

Fitz snorted. “There go your romantic prospects, Simmons.  You’re a married woman.” 

 

“I can always cheat on you.” 

 

“Aye.” 

 

“I think I’ll miss studying.” 

 

“I  _ know  _ you will.” 

 

“I know  _ you  _ won’t.” 

 

Jemma spun her new, fake-real ring around her finger in the darkness. “At least it’ll make for a good story, when we’re through. In a couple of years, when we’ve finished here, we can go back to the Academy, and we’ll probably even be of an age with our peers still, but we’ll already have so much experience working for SHIELD.” 

 

“A couple of years, yeah.” 

 

She was grateful that he didn’t contradict her, for once. Hill  _ had  _ said it could take a while. 

 

At least they had each other.  _ Only  _ each other, she reminded herself. It was a frightening prospect, and a great deal of pressure to put on one friendship. To have them be your everything, the only dependable  _ anything _ in your life. But it was also... nice, somehow, in its newness. Fitz was always so lost in his own head he probably didn’t need her half as much as she felt she needed him, but she didn’t mind. 

 

“Good night, Fitz,” she murmured, turning on her side to brush her fingertips against the side of his sleeping bag. 

 

His hand found hers on the carpet between them, and her heart swooped with affection. “Good night, Jemma.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some genre-typical violence. Also, some *friskiness*.

“Shut  _ up _ ,” Fitz groaned, chucking a book in the direction of Jemma’s alarm, which was going off on their shared bureau. 

“Fitz!” Jemma scolded, re-entering the bedroom just in time to see the book smash into the wall. She hurried to scoop it up and check it for bent pages. “It’s not Octavia Butler’s fault you’re a hopeless lazybones. Nor is it mine,” she added firmly, as he frowned at her from his pillow. “It’s your turn to make breakfast. Get up, or I’ll strap you in when I make the bed.” 

“Won’t be able to get up then,” he mumbled, curling up onto his side to get five more minutes -  _ just five, honest  _  -- but Jemma flipped the end of the duvet and tickled his feet, sending him scrambling out of the bed. “Alright, alright, you harpy.” 

He stumbled in the direction of their ensuite, rubbing at his eyes with one hand and loosening the tie of his pajama bottoms with the other. He really felt like he’d gotten the raw end of the deal in this arrangement, stuck with all the challenging parts of marriage - responsibility, kids, having to share a bed, the nagging - and none of the fun bits. The bathroom door shut behind him, he turned on the shower and stroked his morning erection, head tilting back a bit in relief. He supposed the emotional support and companionship were nice, the feeling that Jemma understood him better than anyone; and sometimes they’d accidentally drift together at night and wake up cuddled together, which made the bed-sharing less of an annoyance. But still, to get plonked into a marriage without sex - that just seemed rude. 

They’d never spoken about it, but Fitz assumed Jemma handled her libido the same way he did his, wanking in the shower or maybe in the bedroom on the rare days one was out with the kids, leaving the other at home alone. She certainly didn’t  _ owe  _ him anything, just by nature of being his not-wife. That didn’t mean he didn’t sometimes wonder... But Jemma, he knew from unfortunate conversations back at the Academy, wasn’t reticent about pursuing the objects of her lust, so if she’d never hinted at an interest in him, it likely meant she didn’t desire him that way. Which was fine, he mused, hand still on his cock, and probably for the best. It was difficult to see the point of pursuing a romance that could destroy not only the most important relationship he had but also a mission crucial to their careers and to SHIELD’s broader efforts. So he’d stick to beating one out behind closed doors, occasionally breathing in the scent of Jemma’s neck when she stood near him and imagining the soft give of her inner thighs but ultimately keeping it to himself. 

After his shower, Fitz plodded downstairs. Jemma’s back was to the room as she laid out four packed lunches, and he ran a hand across her back in silent greeting. 

The twins were sprawled on the couch, sharing a graphic novel between them. He watched their reflections in the mirror over the fireplace; they really did look alarmingly like him and Jemma, which wouldn’t have been odd except that Maya and James were adopted. When SHIELD had determined it was time to add a family component to their cover story, they’d announced Jemma’s totally fictional pregnancy to their work friends and their neighbors, then left for a sabbatical to, ostensibly, allow Jemma to run the course of the pregnancy with her family back in England. In reality, they’d spent a boring year essentially on house arrest in a safehouse somewhere in South America, after which point a SHIELD operative had given them the twins, babies up for adoption, chosen for their parents’ physical similarities to Fitz and Jemma. 

“You’re sure you didn’t take some of my hair from the drain and have them make a set of babies with our DNA?” he’d asked Jemma shrewdly, more than once, as they’d watched the twins grow up. 

“Not really how the science works.” 

Whether they were biologically his children or not didn’t matter - never had, really. Fitz had instantly fallen in love with their fussy little faces and their pink hands and had thought of them as his own ever since. 

“What do we say to pancakes?” he proposed, leaning over the couch. 

“Yaaaayyyy!” Maya and James shouted, just as Jemma called, “Abso _ lutely  _ not, they’ll just crash in first period!” 

“Tell you what, we’ll do pancakes this weekend,” Fitz promised, helping the children scramble over the back of the sofa. “Then it won’t matter if we have a carbohydrate crash because we can all just lay on Daddy and Mummy’s bed and sleep the day away.” 

He caught Jemma’s eye roll, but she was smiling affectionately. As he passed her to take some eggs out of the fridge, he thought he heard her humming one of the songs that had played at the bar the night before. 

Marriage wasn’t the  _ worst  _ thing. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


As Fitz was heating up his leftovers in the Institute’s cafeteria microwave, waiting for Jemma to show up, his phone pinged with a message from her. 

_ J: Sorry! Got pulled into a meeting. Now working through lunch to finalize budget reprojections because SOMEONE didn’t turn their departmental numbers in until today... and they’re due at 5.  _

_ F: Ugh. I’m sorry. We’re surrounded by idiots.  _

_ J: Wait for me after work? We can take the bus back together and catch up then.  _

He smiled down at his screen. They lived together and she still acted like she couldn’t wait to see him, to talk to him about anything and everything. 

_ F: Tonight’s the team leads meeting. I probably won’t be out til 7:30.  _

_ J: Blergh. I forgot about that! And I promised the kids I’d make lasagna.  _

_ F: LASAGNA??? Nooooo. That’s my favorite, Jem _

_ J: I know :( We’ll miss you _

_ F: It’s fine, I’ll just cry into my vending machine soup.  _

_ J: How about I pick you up? I’ll drive over while the kids are at practice, we can get ice cream on the way.  _

_ F: I --  _

He nearly typed out “I love you”, in a totally grateful-friend sort of way, but thought better of it and backspaced over the whole phrase. 

_ F: Bless you. _

_ J: Good luck with the meeting!  _

She sent a series of emojis and a gif of a baby pug dancing. Fitz chuckled and pocketed his phone. 

  
  
  
  


The meeting had run over, as he’d feared, but he’d warned Jemma when she texted him that she was on her way that he might be a bit late getting out to the car park. It was 7:45 by the time he was gathering his belongings from his office, so he was disgruntled when a few men stepped out of the lift and blocked his way. 

“Excuse me, I need to get on that - my wife’s wai-- oi!” 

They grabbed him by both arms and dragged him down the hallway. Everyone else had already left; the place was deserted, no one there to see him being grabbed by these kidnappers or terrorists or robbers, no one to call the police.

They flung him to the floor in the crash-test room, a long, cold, concrete hall that he knew had no security cameras. He scrambled up, more for his own dignity than because he actually thought he had any hope of fighting back. His mind was racing. He must’ve been found out. He wished he hadn’t mentioned his wife; he hoped no one would go out to the lot and look for her. Maybe Jemma would get frustrated waiting and would drive home.  _ Please, Jemma, just go _ . 

The men before him reminded him nauseatingly of many Operations cadets he’d spent his time at the Academy avoiding: same build, same cement-block neck, same Hitler Youth haircut. 

And they were wearing the uniforms of the Sokovian National Police. 

He didn’t know what that meant, other than that no help was on the way. 

“Who do you work for?” the man in the middle - Thing 2, Fitz named him  - asked coldly. 

“I - the Sokovian Scientific Institute,” he sputtered. 

Thing 1’s fist to his jaw snapped his head a full 90 degrees to the right. When he turned back to his inquisitors, he could barely see them from the tears stinging his eyes. 

“Who are you?” 

“I’m a scientistic, you bloody wanker,” Fitz snarled. 

The next punch jerked his head backwards and split his lip. He staggered and shielded his face. 

“What the hell?” he yelled. 

“Who do you work for?” Thing 2 repeated. 

Fitz was shaking, from pain and from the very real suspicion that he was about to die, or at least to wish they’d let him die. “Go fuck yourself,” he muttered, wishing his voice hadn't broken. 

This time a boot to the ribs sent him back on his arse. He groaned, curling in on himself for a moment to hide the fear on his face as he braced himself for the confrontation, the outing he’d hoped would never come. Whatever he told them - whatever lies, whatever half-truths - there were lives other than his own on the line.

Swiping blood from his chin, he pushed himself up onto his knees. 

  
  
  
  


A while later - a half hour, an hour, a day, Fitz couldn’t have said - he stumbled out into the parking lot, the fresh air cruel against his many cuts. He shivered, though it wasn’t cold; he saw a dozen assailants waiting for him in the shadows between the sparse light from the lampposts. 

Their car, his and Jemma’s, was parked in the back third of the lot - but it was empty. 

“Jemma?” he called, pleadingly, raggedly. 

“ _ Fitz?” _ She came running from the darkness, stowing a gun into her jacket, face so pale he had to steady himself against the car, fearing she was dead, a ghost, they’d killed her -- “Fitz, what - oh my god--”

She supported him long enough to open the door, then slid him into the seat. He hissed as a dozen bruises protested. 

“I’m coming around the other side, okay, I’ll only be a moment,” she reassured him - he was so grateful, because if she’d closed the door without telling him, he wouldn’t have known - he wouldn’t have been able to -- 

She reemerged, as promised, in the seat next to him, and the car rumbled under them as she started it and drove. He closed his eyes, the motion of the car making him feel sick, but just as quickly as they’d begun they stopped moving, in a sea of cars parked at a train station for commuters who’d be back on the weekend. 

“We’ll be okay here, for a bit,” Jemma murmured, leaning across him to take some napkins out of the glove box and leaving the gun behind in the drawer. “Get you cleaned up, can’t take you back home looking like this --”

Her hand was trembling as she started dabbing at his cheek, and he forced his eyes to focus enough to take her in. She wasn’t just pale, she looked  _ wrecked _ . Her face was washed out and blotchy a dozen times over, her eyes puffed from hours of crying, the bit of her arms he could see ridged with goosebumps, even here in the warmth of the car. 

“Jemma,” he breathed, pressing past the pain of movement so he could reach for her. “It’s okay, I’m okay--”

“ _ Okay?”  _ she cried, grabbing his hand to show it to him, the knuckles split and bloodied. “Fitz, they could’ve  _ killed  _ you -- I sat there for  _ hours _ , thinking they were  _ killing you _ , and I couldn’t do anything because of the damn  _ mission,  _ because we’re not field agents, and if I went in after you they’d just kill me too--”

“Then it was them? Hydra?” 

“No,” Jemma sighed, and her face scrunched like she was about to cry again. “That’s the worst part, Fitz,” she continued desperately, sliding across the bench, holding his face gingerly, swiping a moistened napkin across his brow and cheek. “It was a spot check. It was a bloody - a  _ bloody random fucking spot check _ . Mariah told me. She came out as I was waiting and she said they do it all the time. They choose people randomly and just -- just --” She gestured at him, at the state of him. “To test them. State security, they call it. I’m so angry I could--”

Fitz dropped his head back against the seat, all the air gone out of him. “Then they didn’t know.” 

“No.” Jemma shrank back. “Unless - what did you tell them, Fitz?” 

“Nothing,” he promised her, suddenly wanting to cry himself, the immediacy of the pain already past, the trauma of the last hour catching up to him as a tightness in his chest. “I couldn’t -- Believe me, I wanted to just give up and tell them everything and make it stop, but I couldn’t - the thought of anything happening to you, or Maya, or James--” 

“You daft man,” Jemma hiccuped. “Under torture and all you think about is  _ us _ .” 

He rolled his head to look at her. “Losing you,” he whispered, not trusting his voice in the stillness, “would be so much worse than this.” 

She inhaled sharply, somewhere between a gasp and a sob. 

She looked like the scared teenager he’d “married”, in the flickering yellow light coming in through the windshield. She looked like his best friend, brilliant but always in over her head. Chin trembling, Fitz gently ran a hand over her cheek and behind her ear, tucking some loose hair back. 

He’d meant it as a harmless gesture, a needed intimacy in this moment when he felt everything else had gone to hell except for this,  _ them _ , but she followed his hand as he withdrew it, scooting close on the bench again and then climbing up and over him on her knees until she was straddling him, her head ducked under the low ceiling of the car. 

“I feel the same way,” she murmured. 

With her weight on him, her torso against his, every fresh injury flared with pain, but he didn’t care. His already-sensitive skin exploded into a million nerve endings as her hands cradled his neck and jaw and she descended to kiss him, her lips soft as moth wings around his cuts and bruises. His hands wound to her lower back, holding her there, but otherwise he let her lead. He tilted his head back and let himself be kissed, responding only enough to let her know it was welcomed. 

And then he felt a warm tear slip down his cheek - his own, or hers, or both - and it stung on the raw skin of his chin. He jerked back with a gasp, one hand flying up to the source of the pain. It was gone as quick as it’d come, and he winced ruefully, afraid the fragile moment with Jemma was gone as well. 

Instead, he found her watching him. She was still crying silently, but her jaw was set, her eyes dark in a way even he couldn’t misinterpret. 

He leaned forward to recapture her lips. 

Jemma let out a pleased noise of surprise against his mouth and slid down the slope of his thighs until their pelvises aligned. This time they both moaned. Fitz was already content beyond his dreams, just there, frissons of heat between them, her tongue against his - he could’ve kissed her forever like that, desperate and scared and shaking and grateful to have her, to be had by her. 

Jemma, however, as ever unhesitant in pursuing her desire, dragged her hips up and down a few times, experimenting. Fitz’s abdomen trembled in response, his cock stiffening inside his trousers. Feeling her breasts rubbing against his chest, any fantasy he’d ever entertained about fucking Jemma disintegrated into pathetic daydreams that couldn’t hold a candle to the reality. 

She was riding him, humping him, using his position beneath her to work herself up. He couldn’t tell, from the way she gripped his hair and huffed against his mouth even as she tried to keep kissing him, whether he could’ve been anyone at that point, just another warm body to let her grind out her desperation. 

But god, he realized, he wanted her to not need just anyone. He wanted her to need, to want, to fuck  _ him _ . 

Growling in frustration, he lifted her by the hips and rolled them over to lay along the bench of the seat. Jemma looked peeved - beautifully so, her hair haloing across the seat, her chest heaving - but then he dove to mouth at the exposed skin of her collarbone and throat and began to rut against her and her eyes slid closed again. 

“Fitz,” she breathed. 

“Say it again,” he begged, nipping the top of her breast. 

“ _ Fitz _ ,” she repeated, a command and an endearment and a scolding. 

He shuddered at the eroticism of her voice and placed his forearms next to her head so he could drive his hips more firmly into hers. He supposed this would be, for most people, the time to take their clothes off, but they could die at any time and he’d be damned if he’d waste the opportunity to give Jemma Simmons an orgasm just because he didn’t want to come in his pants. 

He settled for leaning on his forearms so he could kiss her - more a mashing together of lips than anything, at this point, but it mean he was kissing her when she finally came, her hips pushing up a bit, and she bit his lip with a squeak. He felt her thighs tense and his own orgasm crashed on him. 

They lay a moment in the stuffy air of the car. The windows had grown fogged with the exertions of sex. Jemma’s breath was still hot on his cheek. 

He pushed himself up and arranged his trousers the best he could. Jemma slid to the other side of the bench, yanking down her shirt and flattening her hair. 

She looked over at him after a long silence. 

“Let’s get you home,” she said softly. “Some of those cuts might need stitches.” 

He wanted to hold her hand as they rode.  He wanted to kiss her as she tended to his injuries, he wanted to join her in the shower, he wanted to cradle her when they went to sleep back on their distant sides of the bed, he wanted to press himself against her when they woke in the morning. But mostly he wanted to hold her hand. 

But he didn’t know, even now, if he could. 


End file.
